


Different steps to a changing tune

by amaresu



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Community: who_minis, Gen, Post-Terminus, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-07
Updated: 2010-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants him to be proud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different steps to a changing tune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deanlover](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=deanlover).



> Many thanks to lyssie for the speedy beta.

Sometimes she thinks she hears the Tardis. She'll be halfway down a corridor, running with a smile, before realizing it was the sounds of the ancient machinery distorted through the metal walls. She doesn't let the crushing disappointment show, doesn't let her herself do anything but laugh at her rashness, but it still sits there inside her chest. Crushing her.

It's not that she regrets her decision to stay on Terminus. She doesn't, she hasn't, not even for a second. It's the most rewarding work she could ever hope to do, exactly the type of work she desperately wanted to do growing up on Traken. She's helping people live. She still misses them though. The Doctor, Tegan, and even Turlough. Even if she's pretty sure Turlough has forgotten all about her by now. She knows Tegan misses her, there isn't a hint of doubt on that count. She knows Tegan misses her just as much as she misses Tegan. It hurts and she knows she'll never have a friend like her again, but it's how things are.

It's the Doctor she wonders about. He hadn't argued with her decision to stay. He'd supported her when Tegan tried to talk her out of it. It was odd that she'd be concerned about him. They'd both known she wasn't going to stay on the Tardis. Her plans had always been to go when she found a place she could do good works. A place she could make a new life, if not a new Traken. They'd both known her departure was coming, but she can't help but wonder if he misses her.

She supposes that's why she keeps tricking herself into thinking she hears the Tardis. She wants him to show up just to check on her. She wants to know how Tegan is doing and if Turlough ever got straightened out. She wants to know how he is. So she's created an elaborate fantasy of the Doctor showing up one day. She'd take him on a tour of the new Terminus.

No longer dark and foreboding, but filled with new and better light fixtures. The rooms were designed for comfort and health rather then just being places to store people until they died. She'd introduce him to the welcoming committee that greeted new arrivals and helped them get settled. She'd let him see the things being done with all the plague ships that were just left to sit empty outside Terminus. She'd show him everything she's accomplished and then they'd sit down to tea. In her mind the Doctor tells her of all the wonderful things Tegan's done since they left. He tells her how proud he is of her and how he knew he was leaving Terminus in good hands.

She doesn't wait for him though, she gets on with her life and compiles the list of things she'll tell him about when he does visit. She wants him to be proud of her and she can only accomplish that by being proud of herself and her work. He's never been reliable when it came to piloting the Tardis, for all she knows he meant to come back a year later and he'll actually show up three years from now, confused as to why she looks so much older.

It's hard to know, to really know, that he misses her though. She knows that a lot of people have traveled with the Doctor. She also knows that he rarely talks about them. Tegan used to say it was because he missed them and didn't want to be reminded of the pain, something Nyssa tended to agree with. It's hard to believe that now though, now that she's been in the same spot for years and never heard from him. Not even a letter or a message sent in one of the ships. It's not as though she's hard to find after all.

Which is why she keeps an open ear for the grinding sounds of the Tardis engines. She's happy where she is, but it would be good to see the Doctor again.


End file.
